


Wrong Number

by schweet_heart



Series: Merlin Fic [59]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Banter, First Dates, Flirting, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 01:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10651935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: "I promise I will not assume that one successful coffee date means we’re soulmates meant to be together forever.”In which Morgana gets a few things wrong, but Merlin and Arthur get something right. Mostly.





	Wrong Number

 

 

Merlin had just gotten out of the shower and stepped into a clean pair of pants when the doorbell rang. And rang again. Whoever it was outside was clearly leaning on the buzzer, and Merlin frowned, wondering just what had gotten into Gwen this morning, because it really wasn’t like her to be this impatient.

 

“Coming!” he yelled, pulling on a pair of trousers and slinging his towel around his shoulders. Gwen had seen him naked before, but that wasn’t an experience either of them were inclined to repeat. “Keep your hair on!”

 

He slid back the catch and turned the handle, a question on his lips along with an invitation, and an instant later he was being shoved roughly aside as a woman he had never seen before muscled her way into his apartment, her face set in an intimidating scowl.

 

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “And where’s Arthur?”

 

“Er,” Merlin said, taken aback. “What?”

 

“Your _name_ ,” she said. “And the location of my no-good younger brother. Don’t make me ask again.”

 

“I’m Merlin?” Merlin said, only it came out more like a question. “I think maybe you have the wrong — “

 

“Oh my god,” the woman said, interrupting him. Her eyes widened. “ _You’re_ the reason he hasn’t been answering my calls, aren’t you? I must admit, I thought Arthur had better taste.”

 

Her eyes flicked over his bare torso and dripping hair, lingering briefly on his ears. Merlin felt himself go red under the scrutiny, and glared.

 

“Listen,” he said. “I have no idea who this Arthur bloke is, but you can’t just walk in here and start insulting me — “

 

“You’re in his flat, half naked, and you don’t even know his _name_?” Her eyes, if possible, opened even wider, and Merlin had time to think that she was actually quite stunning before one of her hands latched onto his arm, her fingernails digging into the unprotected flesh as she backed him up against the wall.

 

“Ow! You’re hurting me!”

 

“You listen to me, _Mervin_ ,” she hissed, glaring at him. “I know my brother, and he may be a soft touch but I’m not and your little innocent act is fooling no one. So either you take me to him right now, or I _will_ call the police, do you hear me?”

 

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Merlin said desperately. “This is _my_ flat. I have no idea who you are or what you’re talking about, and — and — if you don’t let go of me, _I’m_ going to be the one calling the police, all right?”

 

This, of course, was sheer bravado, since Merlin’s cellphone was still on his bedside table and if she didn’t let go of him there was no way he could reach it or the landline to call anybody, ever. It seemed to get through to her, however, as she frowned and glanced around, apparently taking in her surroundings for the first time.

 

“Your place?” she asked. “You mean you really have no idea who Arthur is?”

 

“Yes,” Merlin said, nodding vigorously. “And no. Never heard of him.”

 

“He didn’t put you up to saying that, did he?”

 

“No.” Merlin gestured with his free hand. “Take a look around, if you want. There are no Arthurs here. This is an Arthur-free zone.”

 

Finally, her hand dropped from his wrist. He clutched the injured limb tenderly to his chest and rubbed the bruised flesh, wondering whether perhaps he ought to ask his Uncle Gaius for a booster shot. Just in case. 

 

“I have to admit, this doesn’t _look_ like the sort of furniture Arthur would pick out,” the woman mused. “Unless he’d been hit on the head and lost all sense of taste or became inexplicably colour-blind.”

 

“That’s because he didn’t pick it out. It’s mine,” Merlin said. He decided to ignore the fact that she was insulting him, _again_ , in the hopes that she might see sense and leave.

 

“And how long have you lived here?”

 

“Um. About two years now?”

 

“Ah. I’m sorry,” the woman said, sounding perfectly polite and not at all flustered. “I believe I must have the wrong flat. I do beg your pardon.”

 

“Quite all right,” Merlin said weakly. “Happens all the time, I’m sure.”

 

She favoured him with a distracted smile — she really was ridiculously gorgeous — and turned on her heel, sweeping out of the room in a cloud of perfume and leaving Merlin staring after her with his mouth slightly open, wondering what the fuck had just happened.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, when the doorbell rang again, Merlin was fully dressed and about ready to embark on yet another full and productive day of job-hunting — which essentially involved him sitting on the couch with his laptop, trolling through vacancies online. He stuffed the last of his toast into his mouth and went to answer the door, opening it more cautiously this time, just in case the woman from yesterday had come back to yell at him some more.

 

Instead, there was a bloke on the doorstep who looked like he’d just stepped out of GQ Magazine. He was wearing a suit that probably cost more than Merlin had ever made in his life, and had the chiselled jaw and patrician nose of a Hollywood action hero. His eyes were incredibly blue.

 

“Er, hi,” he said, flashing Merlin a grin that literally made him go weak at the knees. “I’m Arthur Pendragon. May I come in?”

 

Merlin choked on his toast. 

 

When he had quite finished spluttering — Arthur watching him with a raised eyebrow and a faint expression of concern on his face — he let go of the door and gestured to the flat.

 

“Go ahead,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse from coughing. “Make yourself at home. Only — your sister isn’t anywhere about, is she?”

 

Arthur sighed, and his cheeks turned slightly pink as he stepped through the door.

 

“No,” he said. “I left her locked in the attic where she belongs. I just came by to apologise for her behaviour. Morgana can be a little bit…overprotective, sometimes.”

 

“You mean aggressive,” Merlin said helpfully. He shut the door and leaned against it, watching as Arthur glanced around the flat with an expression of faint distaste on his face. 

 

“She means well,” Arthur said, a slight frown puckering his forehead. It didn’t make him any less mind-blowingly attractive, which Merlin thought was exceedingly unfair.

 

“She attacked me!”

 

“She got a little over-enthusiastic,” Arthur corrected. “She thought I was in trouble.”

 

“Well, you weren’t. She didn’t even stop to let me explain. _And_ she insulted my furniture.”

 

Arthur’s lips quirked. 

 

“You have to admit, it’s rather…eye-catching,” he said. “And not in a good way.”

 

Merlin scowled.

 

“I like it,” he said, folding his arms, although truth be told he’d complained about it to Gwen and Will more than once. “And I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”

 

Arthur seemed to realise he was being rude, because he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I just moved into the next flat up,” he said. “She got the room numbers wrong, probably because her idiot secretary has terrible handwriting and doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. All right? I just wanted to make sure you were — “

 

“Still alive?” Merlin guessed drily.

 

“ — not going to sue,” Arthur finished, glaring. “Some people do, you know, when they find out who we are.”

 

“Well,” Merlin said, annoyed at being taken for some kind of litigious opportunist. And anyway, Morgana _had_ attacked him. “Then I guess it’s lucky for you that I don’t know who you are, and that her nails didn’t break the skin. And here I was thinking you came by to check she hadn’t traumatised me for life.”

 

“Well.” Arthur shuffled, looking uncomfortable. “That too.”

 

Merlin rolled his eyes. “How kind of you. I’m touched. Please leave now.”

 

“No, really,” Arthur insisted. “I have to live in this building and I’d rather not start out with my next-door neighbour hating me because my sister apparently believes I’m incapable of looking after myself. There must be something I can do to repay you for your…trouble.”

 

“There isn’t,” Merlin said. “So you can leave, now.”

 

“At least let me buy you coffee. Or a sofa.”

 

Merlin set his jaw. “I don’t take hush-money.”

 

“It’s not hush-money!” Arthur exclaimed, throwing up his hands in apparent exasperation. Merlin resolutely did not notice how this pulled the fabric of his suit tight over his shoulders and the well-developed musculature of his arms. “What do you think this is, a bad crime novel? I’m just trying to apologise, you twat.”

 

“Well, you’re doing a very bad job of it,” Merlin snapped. Honestly, he was starting to think that both the Pendragon siblings were as bad as each other. “You know, when most people apologise they use the word ‘sorry.’”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“And they actually mean it.”

 

The two of them glared at each other for a moment, before Arthur sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “All right,” he said. “I really am sorry Morgana came storming in here and harassed you. I swear she has a good heart, really, she just got carried away.”

 

“ _Extremely_ carried away,” Merlin muttered. “She thought I was some kind of — some kind of rent boy!”

 

Arthur closed his eyes. “Oh my god. Did she actually say that to you?”

 

“Well, not in so many words. But she definitely implied it.”

 

“Look, I really am sorry,” Arthur said again, and this time he actually sounded sincere. “The last guy I slept with…was a bit of a creeper, actually. He turned into a total stalker and now Morgana thinks she needs to interfere with my love life even more than usual, which is deeply mortifying, and I…”

 

“It’s fine,” Merlin said, and even though it was mostly just a reflex, he was surprised to find that it was actually true. His anger had faded in the face of Arthur’s obvious embarrassment. “No harm done. Well, I don’t think so. I’ve been thinking maybe I should get checked for rabies or something, just in case.”

 

To his surprise, Arthur actually laughed at that. “That might not be a bad idea,” he said, smiling at Merlin in a way that made his stomach flip over. “She does tend to foam at the mouth when she’s angry, doesn’t she?”

 

Merlin snorted. “It must be a family trait.”

 

Arthur’s mouth dropped open. “I do _not_ foam at the mouth!”

 

“Are you sure?” Merlin asked, grinning. He reached out and brushed at the corner of Arthur’s lips. “I think you’ve got a little something riiiight — “

 

Interestingly, instead of flinching away from the touch, Arthur promptly blushed a deep red, ducking his head, and after a momentary hesitation flashed Merlin that charming grin once more. “Are you _sure_ I can’t buy you a coffee to make up for all this?” He asked again, in a slightly different tone.

 

Merlin blinked, momentarily taken aback as he realised he’d been flirting — and that Arthur was flirting back. When had that happened? He thought about Morgana and her fierce eyes, his conviction that she was about to tear him limb from limb just for being in the same _flat_ as her baby brother. Then he looked at Arthur's hopeful face. The man was a bit of a prat, and probably as unpredictable as his sister, but he was well fit and had a lovely smile, and was, apparently, gay, or at least bisexual. And it was only coffee. “As long as you promise not to tell Morgana,” he said finally, and Arthur beamed.

 

“My lips are sealed,” he vowed.

 

 

 

“So, your sister thinks you have terrible taste in men,” Merlin said, wrapping his hands around his macchiato and gratefully absorbing its heat through the china cup. “Should I be insulted that you want to go out with me?”

 

Arthur smiled ruefully at him. “In my defence, Cedric — that’s Stalker Guy — wasn’t exactly a long-term thing. We had it off in a club bathroom one evening and after that he just couldn’t let it go.”

 

Merlin raised his eyebrows.

 

“I didn’t take you for the clubbing sort.”

 

“I’m not. Usually. I was…on the rebound.” Arthur winced. “Bad break-up.”

 

“Ah.” Merlin nodded. He’d definitely been there. He took a sip of his coffee. “Well, I promise I will not assume that one successful coffee date means we’re soulmates meant to be together forever.”

 

He was aiming for a laugh, but to his surprise Arthur just looked at him, a funny little smile playing around his mouth. “What?” Merlin asked. “Do I have foam on my face? Oh my god, now _I’m_ foaming at the mouth. Maybe Morgana really does have rabies!”

 

Arthur snorted, and finally he did laugh, shaking his head in the face of Merlin’s wide-eyed mock-hysteria. “I was just thinking,” he said, biting his lower lip and looking down at his hands. “ _Is_ this a successful coffee date?”

 

“Well, yeah,” Merlin said, like it was obvious. “I have coffee, and so far nobody’s spilled anything or accused anyone of being a rent boy, so I’d say it’s going pretty well so far.”

 

Arthur sent him another one of those devastating grins, and Merlin felt his stomach flutter in response. He smiled back, and impulsively reached across the table and took Arthur’s hand. The other man looked surprised for a moment, as Merlin gave it a squeeze and then let go.

 

“Relax,” he said. “You’re not the only one with horror stories. Let me tell you about this one guy I dated back in uni…”

 

They spent the rest of the afternoon swapping stories of the terrible dates they’d been on in the past, which was actually a lot more entertaining than Merlin would have anticipated, had he thought about it beforehand. It was cathartic too, and it wasn’t until Merlin was snickering over his second cup of coffee that he realised he hadn’t felt so at home on a first date in a really long time. If Arthur was half as good in bed as he was at making conversation, he could kind of see why Cedric would be desperate for a second go.

 

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, when they were both getting up and putting their coats on ready to go. “But I think I might actually like you.”

 

Arthur laughed. “Am I going to have to move again?” he asked, faking dismay. “I only just got settled in.”

 

“And just think how Morgana might terrorise your new neighbours.” Merlin put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Nope, I guess I’m going to have to stick to my promise. No stalking Arthur Pendragon for me. Although,” he added, hesitating a moment. “If you — I mean, I had a really good time, today. I wouldn’t be averse to doing this again sometime.”

 

“Well then, you’re in luck,” Arthur said. “Because I have it on good authority that you’re going to be asked out again very soon.”

 

“Really,” Merlin said, grinning. “And how do you know that?”

 

“A little bird told me.” Arthur smirked. He pulled out his cellphone and showed Merlin the screen. “What’s your phone number?”

 

Merlin told him, and watched as Arthur tapped at the keyboard with impressive speed. A moment later, Merlin’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and when he pulled it out he saw a text from an unknown number: WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?

 

“You are such a dork, did you know that? I’m standing right here.”

 

“So?”

 

“So, you could have just asked me,” Merlin said, though he was still grinning. “That has to be one of the most pointless texts ever sent.”

 

“No, I mean, so, will you go to dinner with me?” Arthur clarified, elbowing Merlin gently in the ribs. “Are you one of those horrible people who leaves a guy waiting for hours before sending a hopeless one-word response? Text me back, you dick.”

 

Merlin snorted, and did as he was told. A moment later, a single word popped up on Arthur’s phone: YES. Arthur laughed out loud.

 

“You are a terrible person,” he informed Merlin. “I think we should break up.”

 

Merlin just pointed a finger at him. “You have to be nice to me,” he said. “Or I’ll tell Morgana.”

 

“Oh, Christ. I’m already regretting ever coming around to apologise to you.”

 

“No, you’re not,” Merlin said, confident. Arthur’s expression softened a little, his mouth curling up at the corners.

 

“No,” he said with a wink. “I suppose I’m not.”


End file.
